


Recoil

by scullywolf



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 11:51:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3568607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the recoil of a weapon: shocking to the unprepared, sometimes brutally so, but also the mechanism by which the next round is chambered, and the weapon is made ready to fire again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recoil

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my stone-cold genius of a beta, [crazygirlne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crazygirlne). Also thanks to [resile](http://archiveofourown.org/users/resile) for the support and encouragement. :)

She's still getting used to it, the jumping. When they asked, she told her team it felt like being squeezed through two giant rollers and then spat out onto a moving treadmill; it doesn't quite capture the sensation entirely but is as close as she can get with words. 

Her stomach lurches as she stumbles through the landing, but at least she's kept her feet this time. She's getting better at that. Next comes the rush as her brain catches up, the rest of her senses running just a second or two behind. The scenery around her snaps into focus just as her feet stutter to a stop. She blinks, takes a deep breath, sees that she has landed in a field of some sort. There's no grass beneath her shoes, only a pinkish sort of moss, and she's not sure why that feels like something she should remember.

There's no one immediately around her, so she raises her phone, hits speed dial as she turns in a slow circle. There is definitely something familiar about this place.

"We've got you on monitor." Mickey's voice is in her ear without preamble. "Looks like you might'a done it, babe. These readings... there's definitely something that's, like, bending time nearby. We haven't got readings like this since... well, since we started."

She's about to answer, but the wind changes direction, and she can smell something cooking, sweet and smoky, and whatever she was about to say is lost as her head swims with sudden recognition.

"Rosilade,” she breathes.

Rosliade. Superterran planet in the Capella star system. Home to nineteen billion inhabitants, and the first real, proper alien world the Doctor ever brought her to. 

After the year five billion and Platform One, after the Gelth and the Slitheen and “Now I’m signing up,” the Doctor took her to the Sparkfruit Festival on Rosilade. The day was seared on her memory, and she can only blame the post-jump disorientation for the fact that she didn’t recognize the place immediately.

Distantly, she registers sound coming from the speaker near her ear. “...still there? Hello?”

“Right, yeah, sorry,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to concentrate. “Sorry, I’m pretty sure I’m on Rosilade. ‘S what the planet’s called. I’ve, erm, been here before.”

“Can you tell if it’s the right one?”

The cannon’s only been working -- properly working -- for about a week. Before the stars started going out, she was able to teleport, but not between dimensions. Best they could figure, she was sort of ricocheting off the walls between the universes, ending up on other worlds, in other times, but always within this parallel universe. Now, though, with the night sky growing darker and darker, the walls have started to develop gaps. Fissures. Spaces to sneak through, if you’re desperate enough to try. 

The cannon, though, is not so easy to aim. They’ve been trying to use her TARDIS key to isolate and target the ship’s energy signature, but it’s dodgy, nowhere near strong enough to be accurate. Her first jump has actually -- by sheer luck or lack thereof -- been the closest they’ve come to getting it right; she ended up back on that bloody beach, moments after the Doctor’s image had vanished. She landed behind some rocks, out of sight of her past self, and had to hide there, choking back sobs as she waited for the cannon to recharge. They’ve worked to hone the targeting capabilities on subsequent jumps, infinitesimally refining the coordinates, eliminating one possibility after another as the cannon tried and failed to find a blue box that didn’t exist anywhere in the same universe.

And then once the gaps started appearing, once she was able to actually cross between dimensions, there were just that many more possibilities for the trajectory to be slightly off. Other Time Lords and other TARDISes, pulling her into the past when they hopped between dimensions and drew the cannon's aim. A seemingly infinite variety of alien technology with energy signatures close enough to ping as a match on a piece of equipment that, despite being incredibly advanced by 21st century Earth standards, is still relatively primitive in the grand scheme of things. One full week of jumps, up to ten or fifteen a day, and she still hasn't hit the right universe, as far as they can tell.

Maybe now, though....

"I dunno yet," she tells Mickey before starting to walk in the direction of whatever's cooking nearby. "Gonna go check it out, see what we've targeted this time. Anything you can give me from the readings?"

"Whatever it is, it's within about half a mile of you. Just be careful, Rose. Last time we measured a temporal anomaly like this was on your first jump. Doesn't mean it's the same reason, but--"

"Got it. Ring you back when I've got confirmation."

She hangs up, unable to afford getting distracted by the sympathy in his voice. She didn't need him to finish his sentence; she knows what he was going to say.

The temporal anomaly might be her. Two of her, to be precise. And, since she most definitely does not remember running into a future version of herself on her first trip to an alien planet, that means she will have to stay out of sight. No matter what.

If she and the Doctor are here though, then Mickey's right: she _has_ done it. She's finally made it to the right universe, and every second she stays here, she's gathering data through the sensors sewn into her jacket, temporospatial coordinates they can use to further improve targeting. And if she can get close enough to actually touch the TARDIS, that'll help even more.

She crests a low hill on the edge of the valley, and the Sparkfruit Festival grounds come into view below her. It takes a few moments for her to get her bearings -- it _has_ been a good five years or so for her since she was here before -- but as soon as she spots the main square and the amusement park area, her eyes track over to the place where they parked, in the corner behind the hoversledge ride.

And there it is.

Her breath hitches just a bit at the sight of the blue box she called home for the best years of her life. The box she hopes she’ll be able to call home again, when all of this is over. A wave of longing crashes over her, nose prickling and eyes welling up slightly, and she takes another minute to compose herself before pulling her phone back out.

“Cancel the auto-recall,” she says when Mickey answers. “I can see the TARDIS, but it’s probably gonna take more than half an hour to walk over there, and I need to figure out where he… where we are right now, so I don’t accidentally run into us. I’ll call when I’m ready to come back.”

“You sure you want to walk all the way down there? Remember, babe, you can’t--”

“I know. I won’t. Not gonna risk mucking everything up when we’ve got this far, am I? And if I can’t get in and out cleanly, I won’t. But I’ve got to try, yeah? Gather more data for the cannon, like you said?”

“Not if it’s gonna be too hard to walk away after.” His voice is tight, tense. “Or too hard to resist doing something… dangerous.”

He almost said, “something stupid,” she can tell. She bristles. They’ve been over this.

“Look, Micks, I can handle it, all right? I do this now, and maybe the next jump we find him for good, yeah?”

She hears him blow out a breath of air. “All right, yeah. If you can get close to the TARDIS without being seen, put on the gloves and hold them against the side. Thirty seconds should do. Try two or three places, if you can, just in case there’s like a variance or something. But if you can’t do it safely, we’ll find another way. You got the right universe this time, so we should have enough just from your jacket to hit it again.”

“Right.” She nods, even though he can’t see her. “Okay then. Better get going. Talk to you soon.”

“Be careful.”

“Course I will.”

They’ve known from the start that this might happen, that she might jump into her own timeline and be forced to stay away, to not interact. She’s learned the hard way about fixed points and established events; one go-round with the Reapers was enough, ta. In the back of her mind, she's got contingency plans; if the situation with the stars gets much worse and they start running out of time, she _could_ get the Doctor on his own somehow, have him help and then block his own memories so the timelines can be preserved, but that's a last resort sort of thing. First choice is still to get to him closer to her own personal present time.

And if that means she has to just be an observer and information-gatherer on this jump, well... like she told Mickey, she can handle it.

Right, information. First thing is to find out where they are. She remembers this day so clearly, the excitement she felt about stepping into 1869 Cardiff blown clear out of the water by the excitement of stepping onto an actual alien planet. Clinging to his arm, she bounced and beamed as they walked along, through the amusement park and out into the main square of the festival grounds. Vendors of all sorts were set up in rows that appeared to stretch on forever. People danced in alleyways to music coming from every direction. And of course, there was sparkfruit being prepared and served in as many ways as you could imagine, and then some.

Smiling at the memory, she scans the massive crowd below her, wondering if it will even be possible to find herself down there.

And then her heart is in her throat again because there he is, and of course, of _course_ she should have realized that no matter how hard it might be to identify herself in a crowd, she's never had any trouble spotting _him_. Even halfway across a valley teeming with people, his posture and gait are unmistakable. Something like a whimper claws its way up from her chest, doesn't escape because she closes her mouth around it, swallows it back. She can _handle_ this.

Blinking to clear her vision, she forces herself to focus. Where are they exactly, and where are they headed? How long has she got before they’re on their way back to the TARDIS? Momentarily wrenching her eyes away from the Doctor, she takes in the immediate area around him. Them. She’s down there too.

Wait, where is she?

She looks back at the Doctor and sees him stop, turn around, cross his arms in front of his chest. A moment later, she sees herself jogging out from behind a nearby stall, catching back up after being drawn away by some alien trinkets. She can't see his face from up here but doesn't need to, doesn't need to hear to know he's chiding her about wandering off. His voice rings inside her head as clearly as if she were the past version of herself down in the valley with him.

Right. So they're heading towards one of the main rows of food stalls; they haven't stopped for lunch yet. That means she's got some time and a nice buffer of crowds and tents between them and the TARDIS. She can make this happen.

Her eyes flit involuntarily back over towards the Doctor periodically as she makes her way down the hill and around the edge of the festival grounds on her way to where the ship's parked. Even after she's lost sight of him in the crowd, she can't help continuing to glance in the direction she knows he is.

"Get it together," she mutters to herself when she stumbles over a rock, unseen in her distraction. "You'll be back with him for real soon enough."

_But not this him_ , she mentally argues.

"Yeah, well, it's not just about you 'n him, is it? Won't even _be_ a you 'n him if the whole bloody multiverse fades to black."

_Oh, sod off. Don't pretend this isn't harder than you thought._

"And I'm talking to myself again. Fantastic."

She winces at her own word choice and checks her watch. Twenty-eight minutes since she landed, and she estimates another ten before she’ll reach the TARDIS. Most of her jumps have only lasted the standard 30 minutes, give or take, and most often she’s spent that time just waiting -- or taking cover, on a few of the more memorable trips -- until the auto-recall pulled her back to the control room at Torchwood. This is different, having a proper target and something to accomplish. She tries to focus on the task at hand in an attempt to take her attention off a certain leather-clad alien nearby.

God, but she’s missed him.

Right. Eyes front. She mentally rehearses what she’ll have to do once she gets to where the ship is parked, touching the bulge in her jacket pocket made by the pair of gloves that Tosh, the team’s tech specialist, built for her. If she can approach the TARDIS without arousing suspicion, she’ll slip the gloves on and press them to the side of the ship. The sensors in the fabric will pick up huon levels and ten or fifteen other readings, all of the TSD (time-space-dimension) coordinates she’s still in the process of understanding fully, but the bottom line is that a suite of accurate readings should allow them to “lock on” to the TARDIS reliably. That will be immeasurably valuable.

It means her next jump may well be her last.

Fortified, she presses on, the trip around the festival’s perimeter a longer but much less risky one than walking through the middle of the crowds would have been. The music and the chatter sort of fade away into the background as she rounds the last bend that will bring her to the rear of the amusement park area. She barely registers the shrieks from the hoversledge ride when the TARDIS finally comes into view, tucked amid a stand of orange-barked trees.

She swallows, her mouth suddenly dry as she fights to keep her head from swimming. _Keep it together. Last thing you need to be doing is passing out right here._ A careful glance around reveals that she is more or less alone, bar a solitary carnival worker racked out against one of the trees, arms crossed over his chest, hat pulled down over his face. Rose sets her jaw, pulls the gloves out of her pocket and puts them on, striding quickly over to the ship.

Nothing happens when she presses her hands against the wood. She’s not sure what she expected -- it seems a moment deserving of fanfare or fireworks, almost -- but the whole affair is definitely something of an anticlimax. She counts to thirty, hits the save/reset on the cuff of her left glove, moves her hands, counts again, repeats the process twice more. Unable to justify lingering any longer, she leans forward with a sigh to rest her forehead briefly against the ship.

“Help me find my way back, eh?”

She feels the thrum more than hears it. It pulses through her brow and down her spine, at once comforting and energizing. After sucking in a startled breath, she relaxes, allowing herself to bask for a few moments in what is essentially the ship’s version of a hug. When she straightens and breaks contact with the TARDIS, the action is accompanied by a profound sense of loss. 

Shaking her head to clear it, she pulls off the gloves and shoves them deep into her pocket, then takes three steps backwards. She’s got to distance herself or she’ll never leave. The buffer helps, and she becomes aware of her surroundings again, the bloke still asleep under the tree, the hoversledge carting another load of screaming passengers, the music drifting over from the main festival grounds. It’s really only then that she realizes how much she shut it all out, how much she’s left herself vulnerable to discovery as a result. It’s the sort of mistake she absolutely cannot afford to make, and it throws her. She turns and strides quickly away, urgency taking over and providing a distraction -- if only temporarily -- from the longing, from the desire to stay.

It’s the wrong sort of urgency, though, the sort that is not accompanied by an abundance of caution. She’s just gone and started walking _away_ , without paying as much mind to what she’s heading _towards_. And she’s forgotten about the boy who bumped into her while dancing down the alley between the food stalls, spilling sparkfruit custard all over her jacket and shirt. She’s completely forgotten how the Doctor rolled his eyes and muttered something about jeopardy and led the way back to the TARDIS so she could change. And she certainly doesn’t remember the exact route they took around the festival grounds to get back to the ship, until she hears her own laughter ringing out nearby, unmistakable.

“Oh, sh--”

She ducks into the nearest aisle, eyes darting about in search of somewhere to hide until they pass. If she truly had her wits about her, she would just keep walking, but she hasn’t, and she doesn’t. Instead, she stands there, overwhelmed, the blood pounding in her ears and her feet frozen to the spot. She was wrong when she told Mickey she could handle this, when she told _herself_ she could handle it. 

“Everything all right, dear?”

Whipping her head around, she sees a tiny, old woman looking at her from behind the seller’s table in a clothing stall, concern in her narrowed eyes. Rose swallows hard, then nods, taking the opportunity to step forwards into the woman’s tent and out of view from anyone who should happen to look down the aisle. She feigns interest in a rack of scarves and shawls, looking without seeing them, still reeling from the near-miss she’s just had.

Several minutes pass. Her breathing slows. 

_We went back to the TARDIS. I changed my shirt, threw the dirties in the tub to soak, and we wandered through the carnival before coming back through the stalls. Plenty of time to get out clean if I go now._

She turns, thankful to note that the old woman is occupied with helping an actual customer, and slips back out into the aisle. Making her way quickly back towards the hill where she first landed, she cuts straight through the grounds this time, expediency the priority now. The merriment around her is in stark contrast to her sudden weariness; this whole jump has taken much more out of her than she anticipated.

It has opened her eyes, too. It’s one thing to know, objectively, that certain things may be hard to bear but must be borne in service of the greater good. It is quite another to come face to face with those things, to actually have to follow through, only to discover that they are even more daunting than you imagined. But she has learned from this experience: never let your guard down, no matter how tempting, and never underestimate how much it hurts to see him without being able to go to him. Perhaps, with luck, she will be better prepared for the next time, in the event it takes another jump or two to get the timing right.

It's the recoil of a weapon: shocking to the unprepared, sometimes brutally so, but also the mechanism by which the next round is chambered, and the weapon is made ready to fire again.

At last, she reaches the festival’s perimeter once more, and the noises fade behind her as she climbs the small hill. They’re still tracking her back at Control, Mickey and the rest of the team. They certainly have the ability to pull her back as soon as she’s clear of the crowds, but she trusts they’ll wait for her to call.

She just wants one more look.

Cresting the hill, she turns, her eyes finding the TARDIS easily. She scans through the amusement park rides next, finding him -- and her 19 year-old self -- again within moments. They’re hand in hand, and her own fingers twitch involuntarily, seeking contact where there’s none to be found, not yet. The Rose down in the valley is so happy, deliriously happy, and it’s almost galling to watch; it is a singularly bizarre experience to be profoundly jealous of oneself. 

So many years now she’s had, getting used to the idea of time travel -- of past, present, and future running in parallel -- and still it’s hard to wrap her head around the fact that at this very moment, she is simultaneously the happiest and saddest and loneliest and angriest and most terrified she’s ever been. Somewhere right now she is learning to ride a bike, fumbling in a parked car with Jimmy Stone, swinging on a chain above a pit of sentient plastic, arm in arm with a Doctor in leather, with a Doctor in a suit and tie, clinging with every ounce of strength to a lever that will inevitably slip from her grasp, holding her baby brother for the first time, bracing for yet another jump and hoping against hope that it will be her last.

She has to believe that somewhere else out there, she is back aboard the TARDIS, staring out the open door at a billion-billion stars, her head resting against his shoulder. It is this belief that sustains her, that keeps her from despairing in those moments when success feels impossible.

Keeping her eyes fixed on the valley below, she pulls her phone from her pocket and dials.

“Okay, Micks. Bring me back.”


End file.
